Choice Lit Topic: Teaching Writing
Everyone who writes for Choice Literacy loves teaching writing, because we all write ourselves. We know it is “hard fun,” as Donald Murray famously said—exasperating and exhilarating at the same time. The writing workshops you will read about here and see in our videos are busy, noisy, vibrant places. And most days, we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else than in the midst of ’em! Here is where you’ll find our latest discoveries, insights, and occasional boneheaded mistakes in teaching writing.
Results
The Over-Prompting of Young Writers
I have been teaching long enough to remember a time before our large-scale state writing assessment when the word "prompt" wasn't connected to writing. Yet after receiving our first set...
Creating a Model Writing School
It's 3:45 p.m. after a long day of teaching. Our media center is buzzing as teachers excitedly greet each other, grab a quick snack, catch up on the day, and...
Creating a Model Writing School . . . Next Steps
Just like anything else that is new, our first steps in creating a model writing school were tentative. We took a few steps forward, stumbled a little, got back up...
Lessons from Family Writer’s Workshop
While all of our professional instincts told us that hosting writer's workshop with our own children was not the best plan. . . we decided to do it anyway. For...
Punctuation Study with Third Graders
[Writers] deliberately choose certain marks because they know these marks signal us to inflect our voice in a particular way, emphasize a word or phrase, or slow down. We know...
A Three-legged Dog and a Show About Nothing
I've been in a real slump - a writing slump. It seems like it's been ages since I've opened up my writer's notebook, picked up a pen, and let loose...
Unlucky Lists: Raising Non-Writers and Non-Artists
In my work as a literacy educator at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, I often walk by a poster at the elevators that makes me pause and think: "Unlucky Arithmetic:...
A Sponge is a Summary
When I'm working with a concept that I know may be difficult to grasp, I like to hook kids' attention with a metaphor or an analogy. While doing the dishes,...
The Joy of Letter Writing: An Integrated Unit for Intermediate Students
Note to self: Never underestimate the power of FUN in writing workshop. It started as a fairly typical unit of study. I knew that according to the academic content standards,...
Dear Mrs. T: Moving Students from Summaries to Rich Response
"Dear Mrs. T" are three of my favorite words in my 5th grade reading workshop. They are the first three words in the reading letters I receive from my students...
Our Living Minute: Integrating Nonfiction Study into Morning Meetings
Last summer, Samantha Bennett's text That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms That Read, Write, and Think helped me reconsider my work as a classroom teacher striving each day...
What Goes in the Writer’s Notebook?
I start off each school year with good intentions. My files will be more organized, my newsletters more concise, and my time more productive. I'll read more about teaching math...
Expedition Mondays: Launching the Week with Nonfiction
If you were to visit my classroom on any Monday morning, students would beg you to join us for Expedition Monday. What would this opportunity mean for you? ex·pe·di·tion NOUN: A...
Engaged by the World: Maps, Globes, Reading, and Writing with Young Children
I had been puzzling over Luis for some time. I couldn't get him interested in doing more drawing or writing, and he wasn't like other 3 to 5-year-old children in...
Letters in the Middle School Classroom
I began my first year of teaching at a middle school this year. However, although I was trained in a program that focused on secondary education, it was the words...
Rethinking a Study of Nonfiction Writing
I have always done a study of nonfiction as part of our year in writing workshop. This study of nonfiction writing seems critical for students in the upper elementary grades,...
Preschool Letter Detectives
"What is a letter?" "A mystery." Five-year-old Gabe's response to my question stunned me. I realized from listening and observing his teacher Melissa's gentle nudging and guiding that letters are...
Inspiration from Author Visits: Tips and Web Resources
The fifth and sixth grade students at my school were fortunate to be visited by author Stacy Hillmer. Stacy is the author of five published stories and one book, An Armadillo...
Rethinking Reading at Home
We struggle every year with the question of whether to have students fill out logs for the reading they do at home. On one hand, we want students to read...
Easing into Assessments During the First Six Weeks of School
As Lucy Calkins reminds us in The Art of Teaching Reading, "Once you really pull in close to consider children's understandings (and misunderstandings), it quickly becomes clear that 'simply' giving children...
Conferring with Children: Principles and Procedures
Just for fun, when we're in a new classroom of young children together, we often introduce ourselves and begin by asking the class a question. "Who do you think is...
